2015-12-30 All Them Guns
This scene is rated Everybody
Warning: N/A
2015-12-30
Players: Peggy Natasha
GMed by {$gm}
Title: All Them Guns

Location: Avengers Commons - Stark Tower

It's stretching into late night, definitely after midnight now. As a part of her continued attempt to bond with people in settings other than giving missions or reprimands across her desk, Peggy came out into the common space to finish her work several hours ago. But a few too many late nights in a row and the comfort of the commons couch, and she's dead asleep already. It's probably well past a 90 year old woman's bed time, even if she'd smack someone for saying that. She's in a more casual outfit, a set of high waisted long, wool pants and a casual cream blouse. A tablet rests on the coffee table nex to her and a now cold cup of tea.

The elevator doors opened and Natasha stepped into the common area. She'd been out with a few co=workers, one of which was Nick Fury himself. He'd come back to town from his latest expedition and had requested a night out with some of the Shieldites he enjoyed the company of most. Nat moved through the area around the elevator and toward the bar to get a drink, she hadn't drank while at the restaraunt but decided she would when she got home to unwind a bit… she rarely ever slept so here she was walking toward the otherwise quiet bar with her hands stuffed into a black denim jacket, some black jeans on her lower half and a crimson red turtleneck sweater beneath her coat. "Well, hey there." She said, spotting Peggy. "Surprised to see you up and about, Chief." She told the Director as she went for a bottle of rum and another of dark red juice.

Well, Peggy *hadn't* been up and about, but the sound of the elevator door opening is enough to jerk her back to wakefulness. She sits up abruptly, blinking that sleep out of her eyes and trying not to look like she was just passed out in the common room, but not entirely succeeding. Natasha gets a drowsy blink and a half smile from her reddened lips, "Natasha. I… figured I might work somewhere a touch more comfortable. Apparently, too comfortable." She admits, a touch of embarrassment behind clipped voice.

Natasha grinned at the Director's words and she looked down at the bright white glowing bartop whilst pouring herself a glass. "You look a little frazzled there, dear Peggy Carter." She told her superior. "Are you sure this… 2016 world isn't wearing you up a little too much?" She asked, lifting her glass up now for a drink, pressing it to her dark red lips and tilting it back while her eyes flicked over across the bar to eye the other woman. A moment later and she lowered the glass again. "I get the sense you're the type of person who doesn't like to admit any amount of trouble that they may be having though. So I don't expect you to answer that with a 'yes'." She gave a lopsided grin toward Peggy then.

That was certainly not the greeting she expected tonight. Peggy smooths a hand back through her normally stylized waves, trying to smooth them down just a bit from her impromptu nap and not look quite so frazzled, but she's been caught napping on the job — literally. She clears her throat and looks down to the abandoned tablet she'd been reading over, the screen long dark, so she can't even use that as an excuse. Finally, her professional tone comes in formal, almost business like response, "While I will not say that it is wearing on me, exactly, there is much to… catch up on. I need to recertify in almost every vehicle SHIELD owns and I won't use working hours to do my personal homework. So, it's simply…sometimes there are not enough hours in the day is all, Agent Romanova."

"Nope, there are not." Natasha replied as she fiddled around behind the bar a moment longer and then came out on the other side and moved toward Peggy. Natasha lowered down and sat on the black leather sofa seat adjacent to where Peggy had been napping and she offered the woman a loaded glass of dark raspberry juice and… likely some liquor in there also. "Here, relax a little." She told the over worked woman from the past. "You've earned it, far more than most of the people who indulge much further than you do." She told her with a little grin as she took a sip from her own glass.

The brunette lofts a skeptical brow as vividly colored pinkish red juice filled glass is offered in her direction. She trusts the woman enough to reach up and take it, but she does give the liquid a curious sniff to check and see just how much it make knock her on her arse. A sip is taken a moment later, red lips taking a heartbeat to savor the flavor before they fall into just a hint of an amused smirk, "I don't know that anyone truly earns indulgence, Romanova. It's just when you start to relax that enemies begin crawling out of the woodwork." Even a year awake, away from that war and the early days of SHIELD, and Peggy keeps that paranoia around her like a familiar blanket.

Natasha lounged back in her sofa chair and she crossed her legs at the knee then took another sip of her drink while Peggy spoke on this. "They'll crawl out regardless of our state of preparedness. You know that." She said to the other woman with another slanted grin as she sat her glass down atop her jeans-covered knee. "So you've been with us for a… what, twelve months now?" She asked then. "Have you even had a day off since then?" She smiled faintly toward her. "I'm not one to really judge on the subject, but I don't know… I think I'm worried about you… But I don't worry about people that often, so its hard for me to tell." She said coyly and grinned a little again. "We've both some a long way, surfing across the waves of history… but your trip was a bit more of a sudden leap than mine. I guess I'm just concerned you might be suffering some a little bit of whiplash."

The dark haired woman's expression remains carefully neutral as she listens to Natasha's surprisingly tender words. Peggy isn't entirely able to *let* herself feel the emotions that threaten to well up at the back of her throat as someone actually shows some concern. It was unexpected and probably far more needed than she'd care to admit. Eventually, her dark eyes flicker away from Natasha and she stares down into that sweet concoction. "That is remarkably sweet of you, Natasha. And there isn't much point in taking a day off without family or friends to truly see. I'd just be worried about what was happening here." She takes another sip of that sweet drink, apparently it tasted good enough for her consumption approval. "I am… fine. Just had the yearly physical. I'm just fine." But her avoidance of Natasha's eyes probably hints that she knows the physical wasn't what Natasha was discussing.

Natasha just sat there staring at Peggy with her green eyes locked on the woman and a casual-friendly look on her face. "I've had those physicals." She replied then after a passing second or two. "I'm not sure which is colder, those physicals, or the water in this building after Banner takes a shower." She flashed a smile knowing that that joke wasn't very good. "Health wise, I'm sure you're great. You're a warrior afterall. But nah…" She softly shook her head, her straight locks of fire-red hair shifting a little on either sides of her face. "I'm just worried you feel detached and alone here in the 'big bad future'." She sat forward in her leather chair then, causing the material to creak in that all-too-familar leathery way. She uncrossed her legs and put her elbows ontop of her knees, holding her glass between her hands. "I had the human in me beaten out by the ruthlessness of a corrupt Russian government… But you, your human side is still there, still needs… something more than just this job." Her words were soft and caring. "Maybe I'm overstepping my boundries though."

It's the comment about the Russian government that draws Peggy's eyes up more than anything, a flash of concern through her dark gaze for *Natasha*, even if this discussion began in worry for herself. Her red lips settle into a slight frown, "Natasha… I… I've read the file. Hell, I fought Red Room operatives long before you and I met. I know what they do to people. But… you… You got out. You are still human, beneath all of that. And if you really had all the human in you beat out, would you really be sitting here asking a woman who scares most people in this building how she's holding up?" The voice that contains that question is just slightly a scrape of itself, a wave of emotions behind it that Peggy is still managing to restrain, but they are threatening to win right now. It's easy not to cry or break when no one seems to care, but when a hand is reached out… it's far harder not to take it.

Natasha stared at her throughout Peggy's words, her stare was unwavering as her confidence was remarkably high. She let a few lingering seconds pass before she did finally look away toward her drink. "Maybe I'm faking all of it." She said. "I've faked so many personalities and… cover stories. Sometimes I'm not sure if I even ever come back to… whoever it is that I'm supposed to be." She looked back over at Peggy then and showed another faint, unconvincing smile. "I think I see you heading down a road that looks too familar to one I know well. And thats what makes me bring all of this up with you. I've watched you since you got here… I mean, ya know.. not in a creeper way…" She grinned a little again. "You're a woman out of time, which I can kind of relate to, even if there are significant differences. I don't want to see you deal with…" She trailed her words off and put her right index finger up toward the side of her head. "The mess that goes on up here because of this job we have."

The silence that stretches between them goes on a bit too long to be comfortable, but Peggy hasn't looked away again. She's studying Natasha with a stare that says Peggy is used to reading people down to the very core of their being. She's broken war trained men with those eyes and a few words. But this isn't an interrogation room. This is a too-comfortable couch and one of her own people. Finally, however, Peg draws a slow breath and murmurs gently to the woman, "There is no one we are supposed to be, Natasha. We are who we are. No, you are not the girl who was born in Russian, that could have been raised with your family in some country side… or any of dozens of personas you may have had to wear. You are a woman who got out of a life which has driven mad, killed, or completely dehumanized dozens of women. You got out. You've joined a team where you are now required to rely on others for your own survival — and vice versa. You've put yourself in a situation where you must find who you are again — now, not then. You aren't supposed to be anyone but the woman who is sitting in front of me now… that is the woman everyone here has decided to put their lives behind. You can't fake that." No, it probably wasn't why Natasha started this conversation, but those words seem just as important to Peggy to say as any admission she might have about her own state. Probably more important. She watches Natasha closely after offering that statement.

Natasha listened to the woman's words and then leaned back onre more in her chair, letting her left hand dominate the control of that glass of fruity liquor as she slid it down her thigh to about the mid-way point. She sat there back in the comfortable leather chair and then flashed a smile toward Peggy. "This is why you're a good leader." She said. "You have that… spark. The wisdom spark." She said, lifting her glass up for another drink, the ice cubes within it clinking against the walls of their glass confines. When she lowered it again she nodded her head once. "So the sollution is to move the Shield Headquarters to a tropical island, yes?" She asked with a slight grin.

The last comment there actually pulls a genuine laugh from Peggy's throat, "I thought we had one in Bora Bora. We all just need to take a rotation in that office." Peggy's husky voice admits softly. She sinks back into the couch then, mirroring Natasha's body language. Which, for women as trained in personas as they are, is a well known way to get someone to trust you more or pull you into their intimate circle. But it's also something people do when they are actually comfortable with each other. SHe takes another gulp of her drink and releases a breath that sounds genuinely… Exhausted. It has the weight of a century behind it, in truth. "…What if we make a… deal. No, a promise, to each other. You have to be human and I have to be human, when we're like this. Just us, together. No one else. But… no bullshit. Either of us."

Natasha listened to these words from the Director, having smiled at the initial words about Bora Bora, but not laughed… Nat didn't really ever laugh and if anyone who spent time around her were asked, they'd simply never recall having heard such a thing come out of her. The rest of what Peggy said left Natasha just sitting there in the chair with her right hand on the side of her thigh and her left holding that half-empty cup of ice and boozed juiced. She stared straight ahead toward the giant windows that were the walls of the room, which looked out over Manhattan's skyline. She knew the truth, that Peggy would never be her friend. "You and I did meet." She told the room. "You fought Red Room agents." She took a slight breath in through her nose. "You fought me." She took the glass up to her lips again and cooly enjoyed another sip. Peggy asked for no bullshit, and Natasha didn't WANT to bullshit her, she respected the woman too much… even idolized her humanity.

Dark eyes stare quietly at Natasha from across the rim of her glass. There is no visible reaction from her yet. She remains silent, letting the red head get everything out she needs or wants to say. But when Nat leaves it at them just having fought, a slight quirk of a strange smile pulls at her mouth. She drains the rest of her glass before setting it aside. "If… my guess is correct, we fought three times, actually. 51. 54 and 55. I came after you that last time. The woman you used to be killed someone I loved very dearly. I had full plans on killing you." She admits softly, no hate in her voice now. "…Are you that woman still?"

Natasha continued to just recline there in the seat and she heard all of what Peggy said, it made her question several things inside of her own mind. She did look back to her right, to stare at Peggy once again. "I don't know." She told her. "I live my life, killing those whom I'm ordered to kill. I've, abandoned the dismantled government that created me and have alligned myself with one I believe to be wholely better. However, I'll still kill whom I'm ordered to kill." A brief pause. "So, have I changed?" She asked, softly shaking her head from side to side as she looked to her left once more, toward those large glass windows across from her.

"…Why align yourself with people you consider to be better? Why abandon what you have? Why not go into it for yourself?" Peggy asks quietly, barely moving now, just staring at Natasha from her position in the over plush couch but a foot or two away. Peg is keeping any sort of emotion off her face, not daring to give a hint that might sway this conversation.

Natasha fully expected Peggy to have lunged at her to try and strangle her by now. The memories she had of killing that person that Peggy was close to, thick in her mind which refused to forget anything. But the questions she's asked, and in that cool and calculated manner kept her grounded in this moment that had been far more casual only moments ago. "Its…" She lifted her right index finger again and pointed at her head. "All in here. The programming. They… were relentless. In a way that I can't express in words. They made me into a robot, then, let me reform into a person once again. They gave me a life, and allowed me to fall in love. To get married." She lifted her glass up again and took another small sip. "Then they killed him and took him away and turned me into a machine again." She glanced back to Peggy. "Have you ever heard of the process that the ancient Samurai sword makers used to forge a katana? The folding of the steel? This is how they, my 'creators', forged their soldiers."

The woman's companion listens quietly, not letting even a scrap of judgement cross her face as Natasha explains her history. Once it's finished, the analogy given, Peggy slowly sits up straight again. She rests her elbows on the tops of her knees and leans a bit closer to Natasha so she can stare straight into her gaze, almost boxing Nat in with her eyes. "Do you want to be that person still? A soldier? A broken and reforged sword? Or do you want something more?"

Natasha looked over at Peggy when the Director leaned forward like that. She eyed the woman with a calm, albeit somewhat forlorn expression. "Everyone around me is going to die." She said then, soon to add. "I'm a ninety year old woman in a…" She glanced down at herself. "I don't even know, a twenty five year old woman's body." She then looked right back up at Peggy's eyes. "If I live to find old age, anyone who's with me now will be dust in a wooden box six feet beneath my boots." Her last next few words were just barely above a whisper in pitch and volume. "There is no normalcy here." And she chased that statement with another drink of liquor and fruit.

"I never said anything about normal, Natasha. I said different. None of us will have normal, for all our own fucked up reasons. But do you want more than what you had? Or do you want to be a weapon?" Peggy isn't going to let her duck the question.

Natasha grinned at hearing Peggy curse. "My virgin ears." Nat said in jest back to the woman in response to it infact. She then sucked in a breath through her crimson-painted lips and she shook her head softly a single time side to side. "I'm a great weapon. But, sometimes I want to just, be ignorant to it all." She tipped her chin toward the window and the night-time skyline of the big city. "Like all of those wonderfully clueless people out there. But, then I get thoughts of trying to live a life like that, and subsequently not being there when the world needs the weapon."

"You're never going to get that, but… there can be something more than the weapon." Peggy then stands, something stalwart in her position which matches the tone of voice she uses for the next statement, "You have new orders, Agent Romanova. No killing. You will only be assigned ICER weapons and any missions that may need a target elimiated you will be given a partner. You can still be a weapon without being a killer. These orders are in place until I lift them. Understood?" She rests her hands on her hips, looking down at Nat with an arched brow that just dares the woman to argue with her on this.

Natasha's drink was dry and she cursed the bar for being so many steps away to her left, she glanced in its direction as Peggy stood up and then she looked over and up at her boss. When the new orders were detailed, Natasha just sat there quietly in thought… her dark brows slightly furrowed. "I…" She trailed off her words initially, allowing her eyes to fall down toward the area between them. "I'm not sure what you wish to accomplish with that. It could, endanger the lives of our co-workers… my team-mates." She seemed to be contemplating all of the various ramifications of such orders like some kind of a computer or android might.

"I wish to prove to you that you are more than a machine of death. Because I know you are. But you do not seem to know the same. And you will just have to trust your teammates to be as capable as you are. I expect all lethal force weapons to be returned to the armory by 0900 hours tomorrow. The decision is made. You can file a complaint with Fury if you wish." Peggy gives her a half smile, sweet and business like, but as stubborn as anyone in the world. Peggy was a tough wall to knock down, it seemed quite doubtful she could be swayed from this idea. Then she stops, softening just a bit from her stiff orders. She dares to reach down and rest one hand on Nat's shoulder. "…Natasha… I realize there is little I can do to actually enforce this order. You can kill with your hands better than many with a gun. You probably have non-SHIELD issue weapons which I cannot order you to surrender. But… I ask you, for the next little while at least… Listen to me? Try? I think you may surprise yourself…"

And Natasha just sits there quietly listening to the woman. She glances over and up at her when the hand is laid across her shoulder hidden beneath that black denim of her jacket. A seconds later and Nat's hand dips into said jacket then removes a 9mm handgun that she sets on the arm of the chair she occupies, leaving it resting on its side. Her right hand dips into the cuff of her left jacket sleeve near her wrist and she pulls out three small knives that all glisten in their silvery-luster… these are set on the other arm of her chair. She lifts up her right leg and pulls the cuff of her pant leg up then detaches a snub-nosed revolved from a velcro=holster on her ankle above her boot and she sets that next to the 9mm. "I won't complain about orders." She told Peggy quietly as she stood up from her chair, coming to her full imposing height of a towering five foot three engines. She reached both of her hands behind her back and pulled a .45 calibur desert eagle out of the waist band of her pants and leaned down to set it on the coffee table. "Everything else on me is non-lethal." She said in a dry tone of voice as she walked then toward the bar to get another drink. How much else was this woman carrying??!?!?!

As the dark haired woman strips all those weapons from her frame Peggy doesn't show any surprise. She just waits, ensuring everything is off the woman's frame before she neatly begins to scoop up those weapons. "Thank you, Agent Romanova. I will have these things locked away and kept safe for you. And… thank you for trusting me." Her softer smile lingers for just a heartbeat, then she turns on the ball of her foot and slips out of the room to secure the weapons. It won't do to have them sitting out in the common area!

< END >

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